


I'd Wish for This

by thebaddestwolf



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, One Shot, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-21
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 14:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3981328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebaddestwolf/pseuds/thebaddestwolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the Doctor thought it was cruel that his brain stored such sharp memories of her, a Rose-shaped figment forever just out of sight. But most of the time he took it for the gift it was -- that he could conjure up every waking moment he’d spent with her, relive each one anew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'd Wish for This

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lauraxtennant](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lauraxtennant/gifts).



> beta: tkross

The Doctor trains his eyes on the horizon as he runs his hands through his hair, making the strands stick up before smoothing them back into place. Slouching in his seat, he attempts to tamp down his racing pulse and still his bouncing knee, but when he wills the right leg to stop the left starts to jitter, so he gives up.

The sun is sinking lower, anyway -- it won’t be long now.

He thinks of her. She was always a calming presence for him, even after she was gone, sealed away. He knew her so well -- knows her so well -- it was almost like she never left; he could easily imagine what she’d say, how she’d look at him, the weight of her hand in his.

Sometimes he thought it was cruel that his brain stored such sharp memories of her, a Rose-shaped figment forever just out of sight. But most of the time he took it for the gift it was -- that he could conjure up every waking moment he’d spent with her, relive each one anew.

It came in handy particularly in dire circumstances, like when he was locked in a grimy prison cell or shivering as he trekked across the dark side of an ice moon.

And so it’s fitting that he thinks of her tonight. The Doctor takes a deep breath as he turns his favorite memories over in his mind, worn and soft like her nan’s quilt.

He closes his eyes and there she is.

***

Rose grins as she turns her face toward the night sky and takes his hand, squeezing his fingers tightly.

“They’re gorgeous!” She tilts her neck back and her mouth falls open. “What are they, exactly, Doctor?”

“It’s the annual fire-kite ceremony -- a local tradition,” he says, watching the light flicker across her cheeks. “The natives spend all year diving for these phosphorescent stones that are only found at the bottom of the sea -- very tricky work, that. Then, when the harvest moon rises, they place each one in a fire-kite -- paper lanterns, basically -- and whisper a wish for the coming year before letting it float up to the sky. The natives think their wishes allow the lanterns to float, but it’s actually a rare gravitational discrepancy that makes the stones lighter than the atmosphere, even though they sink when in water. Now, they got that way because…”

She tugs on his arm and laughs, rolling her eyes.

“Save the history lesson for my bedtime story, yeah? I’m enjoying the view.”

“Fine, fine.” He chuckles. “But, come bedtime, I don’t want to hear that you’re too tired or that you’re at a really good part in your book and have to finish it tonight. I’m on to you, Tyler.”

“Okay, I promise,” Rose says, jostling his hip with hers. “You know, I think they do something like this in Thailand. Saw it in a movie once. But they use little candles instead of glowing rocks and I think they’re done at weddings, not harvest moon celebrations.”

“Well spotted.” He grins, noting the way the lantern lights float across her irises. “The two traditions do have quite a few similarities.”

Her smile widens and then she shivers, so the Doctor sheds his coat and drapes it over her shoulders. Standing behind her, he wraps his arms around her waist and rests his chin on her head. Rose hums contentedly and leans back against him.

Now that her face is out of view he looks up for the first time and, though he’s seen the ceremony a dozen times before, the sight makes his eyes sting. That keeps happening more and more, these days -- everything is more beautiful through her eyes.

“Doctor?”

“Hm?”

“What would you wish? For the coming year?”

He presses his lips to her head, a featherlight touch he thinks she can’t feel until he hears her breath hitch.

“I’d wish for this,” he says. “Forever.”

***

The Doctor dances about the console as he runs through the TARDIS’ launch sequence, prattling on about all of the places they could visit next. It’s not until they’re floating safely in the vortex that he realizes Rose is curled up in the captain’s chair fast asleep.

He shakes her shoulder gently -- she’ll get a cramp if she sleeps there for long -- but she doesn’t stir. The Wire must have worn her out more than she let on.

Carefully, he loops one arm around her back and the other under her knees -- a rather difficult maneuver around the voluminous pink skirt -- and carries her to her room. He manages to pull back the duvet and lay her down on the mattress without waking her. Then he slips off her heels and slides the pins from her hair and pulls the covers up to her chin.

“Goodnight, Rose,” he whispers, lingering for a moment.

She’ll be alright -- he’d run some tests in the medbay as soon as they got back in the TARDIS -- but he can’t help but worry about how disastrously things could’ve turned out if anything had gone differently. He worries he’s too reckless; that his recklessness is rubbing off on her.

Sighing and resolving to be better, he dims the lights and moves toward the door.

“Doctor?”

Her voice is soft and distant and for a moment he wonders if he’s imagined it.

“Doctor? Can you stay?”

He turns back toward the bed and her eyes are closed, but her arm is outstretched on the mattress, like she’s trying to reach him.

“Of course,” he says, taking her hand and lying down next to her, atop the duvet. “Of course, as long as you’d like.”

She rolls onto her side and nuzzles his shoulder.

“How’s my face?”

“Perfect.”

She starts to laugh but it turns into a yawn.

“No, really.”

“Still there.” He brushes his fingertips down the slope of her nose, across the swell of her cheek, and down the line of her jaw to prove it to her; to prove it to himself. “All features present and accounted for.”

“Good.”

The Doctor turns onto his side and drapes his arm over her, rubbing slow circles on her back.

“Get some rest,” he says. “I’ll stay and keep an eye on things -- make sure your face doesn’t run off.”

“Ta,” she says.

Rose’s eyes are still closed when she leans forward and kisses the side of his neck. It’s terrifying and exhilarating the way his stomach bottoms out, the way he instinctually returns the gesture by pressing his lips to her temple.

Soon her breath is heavy against his collar and the Doctor lets his eyes drift closed, too. They’ve got it wrong, he thinks before he falls asleep. The opposite of lost isn’t found; it’s this.

***

“Psst!” The Doctor cranes his neck around the loo door, keeping it mostly closed. “Psst, Rose! Psst!”

“Oh my god.” She rolls her eyes as she marches over to him and grabs his tie, pulling him down the hall and into the front room. “She’s gone to bed. You’re safe now.”

“Took her long enough,” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I thought people of her age were supposed to go to bed early.”

“I heard that!” Jackie shouts from her bedroom. The Doctor flinches.

“Mum, go to sleep!” Rose huffs and sits on the sofa. “I think she stayed up later than usual so you’d have to keep hiding in there. Serves you right, too.”

“Oh, come on,” he says, sitting next to her. “The chicken _was_ drier than the third ring of Azrikab, I only pointed it out!”

“Shh! If you think she was mad then you don’t want to find out what she’s like when you wake her up.”

“Right, sorry,” he whispers. “So… are you sleeping here tonight or at home?”

Rose mutes the telly and turns toward him, biting her lip.

“Home?”

“Yeah.” He motions out the window toward the courtyard. “On the TARDIS. Home.”

Grinning, she hugs her knees to her chest.

“First time you called it that.”

“What?”

“Home.”

“No, I don’t think so.” He tugs on his ear. “It’s been my home for a long time now.”

“Yeah, but you referred to it as _my_ home.”

“Well, you live there. It is your home.”

“So like, it’s _our_ home. Together.”

“Right.” The Doctor nods. “You’re really getting the hang of possessive pronouns, Rose.”

“Ughhh.” She leans forward and grips his forearm. “Are you being intentionally daft?”

“A little bit, yes.”

She swats at his chest but he catches her wrist and pulls her into a hug. After resisting for a moment she melts into him, wrapping her arms around his back and tucking her head beneath his chin.

“So, I’ll ask you again,” he says, lips ghosting the shell of her ear. “Are you sleeping here tonight, or on the TARDIS, our home, together?”

“Home,” she says, voice muffled against his shirt.

They walk home hand in hand, and as they get closer the Doctor feels their timelines whirring around them, converging, leading them exactly where they need to be.

When Rose reaches out to open the door he tugs on her hand to pull her back. She turns, brow furrowed, and it’s like all sound has been sucked into a black hole as the Doctor steps closer and cradles her face with his hand.

She gasps -- that, he can hear -- and loops her arms around his neck to pull herself closer. She must be standing on her tiptoes because suddenly she’s right there, her nose pressing into his cheek, and the Doctor wonders if the Earth has stopped spinning because he’s no longer tethered to the ground.

Then he kisses her and it’s like he’s bolted in place, and he knows a part of him will never leave that moment.

He’d imagined their first kiss -- their first _proper_ kiss, when they’re both just them -- would be quiet and gentle, but this is anything but. They cling to one another and it’s all very desperate, the way he bunches up her shirt, the way she slides her eager tongue into his mouth.

Somehow, he winds up pressing her against the TARDIS door, knee wedged between her thighs as he kisses a wet trail down her neck. She’s making all these needy cries in his ear and gripping his biceps and they’re not even inside the TARDIS yet and they’re home.

The realization is staggering -- that his home is a person and not a place -- so he leans back because he needs to tell her, somehow, what she means, but then he looks into her eyes, happy and glossy, and he knows that she knows.

Oh, she knows.

***

The sun has nearly set, now, which means it’s almost time. The door swings open right on cue and the Doctor stands, packing those memories away.

He bows his head as he walks, shoulders straight and hands clasped tight as pavement turns to sand. His pulse is racing again, heartbeats roaring in his ears.

There’s music now, joyful violin notes getting swept off by the breeze, and he can’t look down any longer. He opens his eyes and there she is.

Rose is standing so close to the sea the waves are nearly lapping at her toes. He lets his gaze drift upward and, what good is this one heart anyway, because he’s pretty sure it stops as he takes in her simple white gown, floating gently in the wind.

He lengthens his stride when he sees the flowers in her hair and by the time he meets her gaze he’s running, sprinting toward her, because he hasn’t seen her all day; because there aren’t universe walls between them anymore.

She’s laughing when he reaches her, when he wraps her in his arms, and she takes his face in her hands and kisses him, even though he thinks that part’s supposed to come later.

“Hi Doctor,” she says, smiling wide. “I’ve missed you too.”

It’s over before he knows it -- vows exchanged and a second, longer kiss -- and he wonders why he had been so nervous. It’s a frightening thing, he thinks, to get what you’ve always wanted.

The sun has set below the sea, now, but the moon lights the way as the Doctor leads her around a bend in the shore to a small cluster of rocks.

“Wait right there,” he says, gripping her shoulders as if to lock her in place. “Actually, close your eyes, too.”

It takes all of 17 seconds for him to get everything ready and when she opens her eyes he’s standing before her, holding two glowing paper lanterns straining to float away.

“Oh my god.” Rose gasps and covers her mouth. “That was ages ago! How did you remember?”

The Doctor just winks as he hands her a lantern. They both whisper something toward the flames and then let them go, holding each other as the lights soar over the ocean, getting smaller and smaller until they become one with the stars.

“What did you wish for?” he says.

Rose stands on her tiptoes to kiss him and the Doctor holds her close, overcome with gratitude that they finally, _finally_ found their way home.

“I wished for this,” she whispers, lips moving against his skin. “Forever.”

**Author's Note:**

> The final scene was written with [this painting](http://rointheta.tumblr.com/post/117514049801/and-you-doctor-what-was-the-end-of-that) in mind.


End file.
